


deliberate obstruction

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 09:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: “I have gone on multiple dates, all in completely different locations, and you have ruinedevery single one of them.”(Giles is doing his best to get over Jenny. Jenny is doing her best to impede the process.)





	deliberate obstruction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Via Maynard Crowley Whitmore (RedHairGreenStockings)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHairGreenStockings/gifts).



> for liv!!! who:
> 
> 1) tagged me in a bunch of post-breakup prompts on tumblr and said "please write all of these." i did not write all of them but i wrote my favorite one, i.e. _are you?? sabotaging?? my dates?!?!?_ , and used it as an excuse to write about giles and jenny's communication issues. 
> 
> 2) is just an all-around wonderful person and So enthusiastic about rupert giles???? like???? mood???????? so this is intended as a surprise appreciation gift fic as well

The first time it happened, Giles completely missed _why_ it happened, for a multitude of reasons that would later have him somewhat wryly frustrated with himself. For one thing, dinner with Olivia was quite different than dinner with someone like Jenny; he and Olivia had known each other long enough that an interrupted dinner wasn’t too much of a roadblock in their relationship. For another thing, Giles would _never_ have guessed Jenny to attempt something as underhanded and un-subtle as what she did. And the final, largest reason that Giles completely missed the subtext of Jenny’s intervention was simple: it had been a lonely summer, he had found himself thinking about her far more often than he’d care to admit, and every bloody time he saw her, all intelligent thought left his head.

As such, when Jenny arrived at their table, wearing the sparkly, satiny plum dress that nicely accented her figure, all Giles could manage was a sort of frightened noise before he did his best to hide his face behind his menu.

This didn’t work. “Rupert,” said Jenny. “Hi. Um, this is kind of awkward, but I think you guys are sitting at my table?”

Giles didn’t know what to say to that.

“You two…know each other?” said Olivia, looking between Giles and Jenny with a strange expression.

“Oh, yeah, he asked me to marry him one time,” said Jenny, as casually as if she were talking about the weather. “Whole big thing. So, you’re his new girl?”

Olivia was giving Jenny a thoughtful, half-amused look. Then she said, “I don’t know if I’d call myself that. Rupert, would you call me your _new girl?”_

Giles was very busy alternating between pretending to read the entrée section and pretending he didn’t exist.

“Whatever the term you kids use,” said Jenny with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I kinda reserved this table for a whole party-for-one dinner thing. Taking myself out on the town seemed nice.”

“We can move,” said Olivia helpfully, somehow entirely unbothered by Jenny’s presence.

“No, it’s okay,” said Jenny brightly. “I really don’t mind. Breakups are fresh and weird and maybe this’ll make things a little easier, you know? Call it exposure therapy. Rupert’s a great guy.”

“Isn’t he?” Olivia was relaxing, now, her smile becoming less contemplative and more genuine. “God, breakups can be the _worst._ My condolences.”

“I’ll have the salmon,” said Giles very loudly to the waiter, who had just arrived. Then, “Olivia, if you’ll excuse me,” and he got up, donned his jacket, and left, not bothering to look back and see whether Olivia was following. There were very few things that inspired him to make such an ungraceful, hasty exit; Jenny Calendar was absolutely one of them.

* * *

 

Olivia arrived at Giles’s place early the next morning, wearing the same floral-print dress she’d worn to the restaurant, her lipstick artfully smudged. Giles felt a sudden, violent surge of jealousy, looking at her, and was well aware that it was for _all_ the wrong reasons. Jenny was an adult, he reminded himself. Jenny was an adult, who had made it _very_ clear that he wasn’t what she wanted, and she had every bloody right to sleep with people she _did_ want to sleep with—

“I’m sorry, Rupert,” said Olivia, and gave him a genuinely apologetic smile. “If it helps, the guilt did put a bit of a damper on the sex.”

“I’m sure it did,” said Giles, and tried to smile back. He honestly wasn’t that mad at Olivia. They’d been friends long enough for him to know that casual arrangements worked best for her, and this wasn’t the first time they’d gone out and she’d gone home with someone else. “Will you be seeing her again?”

“She implied that I could,” said Olivia, with the wary air of one testing shark-infested waters.

It wasn’t fair, Giles tried to remind himself, holding Olivia back from Jenny just because he was bitter and jealous. It _wasn’t._ “If you’d like to,” he said carefully, “I think I’m all right with that.” He wasn’t, he knew, but Jenny seeing other people was something he was going to have to get used to. He had no intention of impeding the process for her.

* * *

 

The second time it happened was when Giles really _was_ on a first date. Joyce had set him up with one of her friends from book club: a soft-spoken woman named Maura with gently curling red hair. She’d gone for the polar opposite of Jenny, Giles thought, which was kind, but he liked romantic partners who were willing to tell him when they thought he was wrong. Maura simply got a hesitant, semi-disapproving look in her eyes and changed the subject. He’d made some disparaging remark about some book or other, one that she’d evidently liked, and now they were left in an awkward silence, waiting for their food to show up.

Giles, determined to salvage the situation, decided to make an effort. “That book does has its strong points,” he said, trying to smile. “I suppose I’m a bit overly critical. More fond of nonfiction, myself; I get too bogged down in plausibility when it comes to reading fiction.”

“Oh, I can understand _that,_ ” said Maura, brightening. “I can’t _stand_ those vampire novels, can you? The concept of humans who suck blood…” She trailed off, making a face. “Apart from being ridiculously disturbing, it just doesn’t seem _realistic.”_

“Vampires aren’t actually _humans,_ ” corrected Giles without thinking. Maura’s warm expression faded. “Um—”

“Rupert!”

Giles turned, staring. Jenny was weaving through the diner, splattered with mud. _What,_ he thought, _are the odds that this should happen twice in a row?_

“Hey,” said Jenny, waving to Maura. “Sorry to interrupt—”

“ _Do_ try not to sleep with my date this time, _thank_ you,” said Giles before he could stop himself.

“Ex _cuse_ me?” said Maura.

Jenny raised her eyebrows. “So that _was_ a date?” she said. “Olivia seemed to be under the impression that you two were just old friends having dinner.”

“ _Olivia?”_ said Maura, who now sounded outright affronted.

“What do you _want,_ ” said Giles, well aware that this was most likely the last time he’d ever see Maura. He really would have to apologize to Joyce.

“My car broke down,” said Jenny. “I pushed it into the parking lot, but it’s getting dark, and, well, you know how the vampires get in this town.”

 _“Vampires?”_ Maura echoed.

“Is your thing just, like, parroting everything I say?” Jenny asked Maura, giving her a small, unpleasant smile. “Rupert, what’s the deal with her? She doesn’t seem your type.”

“Leave,” said Giles.

“Am I supposed to just walk home alone?” There was a challenging, combative tilt to Jenny’s smile, one that brought Giles back to those faculty meetings in Sunnydale High. She’d make some statement about the budgetary needs of the computer lab, he’d stand up to contest it just because he resented her asking for money the school shouldn’t be spending on those ridiculous machines—

“You are behaving like an _utter_ child,” Giles informed her, “you are being _intolerably_ rude to my date—”

“So  _this_ is a date,” said Jenny, sounding satisfied with herself. “Good to know.”

“You know what, Rupert, I think—I think I’m going to go,” said Maura uncomfortably, looking all but miserable.

“No, Maura, stay—” Giles began, feeling absolutely awful.

“No, I think—I should, I should go,” said Maura, and didn’t wait for Giles’s response, getting up from their booth and hurrying past Jenny without looking back.

Giles turned to Jenny, who looked absolutely unbothered by this turn of events. “That date was going badly anyway, wasn’t it?” she said.

“That is _none_ of your business,” said Giles, infuriated. “You had no reason to—to show up, turn things upside down, hurt Maura’s feelings—”

“I gave her a reason to leave!” said Jenny, as though this should be obvious. “You should be _thanking_ me! And anyway, I didn’t show up to _sleep with your date,_ I showed up because my _car_ broke down and I saw you through the window of the diner! So unless you want me walking home and getting killed—”

Giles threw a handful of bills down on the table and stalked out of the restaurant. He could hear Jenny following him, and didn’t turn to look at her until they were standing outside the diner. “You were terrible to Maura,” he said fiercely.

“ _You_ were terrible to _me!”_ Jenny shouted. “Who the hell opens with _don’t try to sleep with my date?_ If you didn’t want me to sleep with Olivia _that badly,_ you shouldn’t have _left_ without even paying for the fucking salmon!”

Giles stared at her, and felt suddenly, horribly miserable. _This is the woman I love,_ said a small, terrible voice in the back of his head, _and she is looking at me like I’m the bane of her existence._ “You’re right,” he said, and pulled out his wallet. “How much?”

The furious expression on Jenny’s face flickered. “Rupert, no,” she said.

“No, I’m serious,” said Giles. His hands trembled as he opened his wallet, fingers fluttering over the small compartment that still held an old picture of her. “How much was that salmon?”

“It doesn’t _matter,_ ” said Jenny. She sounded just as tired and sad as he felt. “Just—look, I can get home on my own, okay?”

“If your car’s broken down—”

“My car’s not broken down,” said Jenny, and turned on her heel, heading in the direction of her Bug. It took Giles a moment to realize what that might mean, and another moment to decide that he wasn’t going to follow her. This felt like the natural ending to things, he thought; whatever it was she’d been trying to accomplish, she wasn’t going to try and do it again.

* * *

 

She did.

* * *

 

The third time it happened was with another of Joyce’s friends, because ever since Joyce had found out exactly _why_ Giles and Jenny had broken up, she’d all but thrown herself into finding him a lovely single lady friend to rebound with. Surprisingly, she had taken the setback with Maura in stride, saying with a light laugh that Maura was a little hard to handle anyway, and today Giles was out with a woman named Stacie who talked a mile a minute. He rather liked that quality in a person, even if it became difficult at times to get a word in edgewise.

“I don’t know if I _personally_ believe in magic,” she was saying, “but the concept has, at the very least, always _fascinated_ me. There’s something a little wonderful about imagining a world where logical improbabilities can just be called _magic,_ you know? I used to go to a lot of magic shows when I was in college—I was dating a magician, long story—and the whole rabbit-in-a-hat thing was always just so _cute_ to me, though you mentioned things that sound more in the tarot-cards-and-tea-leaves vein of magic, right?”

“Yes,” said Giles, who had completely forgotten what, if anything, he had mentioned.

“That’s pretty wonderful too!” Stacie beamed. She had a rather nice smile, Giles thought, and the fact that this date wasn’t a complete and utter disaster was making him feel a bit more optimistic about his romantic prospects. There wasn’t much of a romantic spark, but at the very least, things weren’t as going as catastrophically terrible as they had with Maura—

And that was when Jenny, walking by their table, very deliberately poured half a bottle of red wine onto Giles’s suit jacket. Stacie, in the middle of chattering away about her friend who read tarot cards, hadn’t noticed Jenny tilt the bottle just enough to spill it, but Giles had, and it shone a _very_ new light on Jenny’s actions. Jenny mysteriously showing up and claiming that she had reserved Giles and Olivia’s table, Jenny’s car breaking down right outside the diner Giles and Maura were at, and now _this—_

“Oh  _no,_ ” Jenny gasped, and to her credit, she really did manage to make her remorseful expression look relatively believable. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine,” said Giles through gritted teeth.

Stacie had stopped talking, eyes wide. “Oh _no,_ ” she said. “Red wine _stains,_ Rupert, and you were _just_ telling me that the washing machine in your house is broken—”

The washing machine in Giles’s house was broken because, two days before Jenny had moved out, she had tried to do a load herself and broken it. There was no way that Jenny’s wine spill hadn’t accounted for this fact. “It’s fine,” Giles said again. “Really, I-I’d hate to miss what you have to say on, on tarot cards and the like. You were talking about your friend Camille?”

“The washing machine in your house is broken?” Jenny echoed. “Look, you can see this lovely lady any time you want,” she directed a huge smile at Stacie, who beamed, “but laundry waits for no man. I think you should get those clothes to a Laundromat as soon as you possibly can.”

“Honestly, Jenny, I really think—” Giles began.

Stacie cocked her head, frowning. “Jenny?” she echoed. “How do you know her name?”

“I’m his ex-fiancée,” said Jenny, giving Stacie another huge smile.

That was it. “Stacie,” said Giles, well aware that Stacie was probably never going to call him back after this, “I am extremely sorry. Jenny, I would appreciate your leaving. And for the record, I am _not_ going to pay for the salmon.”

“What salmon?” said Stacie, whose big grin had now vanished entirely.

“That was from a different date,” said Jenny helpfully, and left.

Giles watched her go. “Where in God’s name did she get an _entire bottle_ of red wine at this hour?” he said, turning back to Stacie with a semi-forced smile. “She really is—”

“Rupert,” said Stacie, not unkindly, “I really don’t think this is gonna work.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re a sweet guy,” said Stacie, “but Joyce mentioned you were going through a recent breakup, and it seems like she’s still a really big part of your life. I don’t think I can compete with that.”

“That’s not—” said Giles helplessly.

“Call me if you ever get over her, okay?” said Stacie, and leaned across the table to kiss Giles on the cheek. “I hope the wine doesn’t stain.” With that, she set a few bills down on the table, then hurried out of the restaurant, leaving Giles _extremely_ frustrated.

It did make sense, he thought, that the _one_ decent date he’d have would be with a woman smart enough to recognize his feelings for Jenny. He really might call Stacie back at some point, but he resented the fact that Jenny had ensured it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

* * *

 

The fourth time was because a striking fellow named Sebastian had seen Giles playing at the Espresso Pump and asked him out in that tentative, half-furtive way that gentlemen tended to do. Giles accepted, mostly because he rather liked the idea of getting to have a date unimpeded by Jenny, and they were halfway through dinner when Jenny showed up and said, “Rupert—”

And Giles snapped. Without a word, he stood up from the table and grabbed Jenny by the arm, towing her through the restaurant and out onto the sidewalk. Letting go of her, he stared at her, infuriated. “This _stops,_ ” he said. _“Now.”_

“I don’t know what—”

“You know exactly _what_ ,” Giles retorted. “I have gone on multiple dates, all in completely different locations, and you have ruined _every single one of them._ ”

Jenny’s indignant expression faltered. She looked away.

“You were the one who _ended_ this relationship, Jenny,” Giles retorted. “You told me you wanted us to avoid each other, you wanted time and space and a clean break, and I _respected_ that—”

“I know.”

“You have _no right_ to show up in my life to  _humiliate_ me repeatedly in front of other people, just so you can ruin even the _slightest_ chance that I’ll be going home with someone who isn’t you—”

“I  _know,”_ said Jenny, and tugged herself free of his hand, falling against the building with an exhausted, defeated look on her face. “Okay? I know I’ve been…” She trailed off. “God, I don’t know the word for what I’ve been.”

“I hope you’re not about to try and justify it,” said Giles coolly.

“No,” said Jenny, “no, I don’t think—I don’t think I get to do that.” She stood up, a little wobbly on her thin heels, and Giles noticed she was wearing the dress that she had worn to the children’s senior prom nearly a year ago. She’d even done her hair the same way.

“You broke up with me,” he said, and couldn’t help his voice from softening. It didn’t bring him any joy to know that this was just as hard on Jenny as it was on him, but…he could at least understand parts of what she was feeling. “You can’t try and win me back, Jenny. That’s not how that works.”

Jenny nodded, and nodded again. “Yeah,” she said.

“If you want to get back together,” Giles began, then stopped, thinking of Sebastian at the table and his own half-finished plate of pasta. “If you want to get back together,” he said, “it won’t be tonight, and it won’t be easy, and—and you’re going to have to _tell_ me—”

“I don’t know how to do that,” said Jenny helplessly. “You proposed to me and I said _no_ without even thinking. I don’t want to go back to that.”

Giles stopped. Slowly, he said, “Jenny, did you break up with me to avoid talking about what that proposal meant?”

Jenny didn’t answer. She drew her arms into her chest, looking down at her scuffed-up high heels.

Giles exhaled. “Whatever it is,” he said, “this won’t—it won’t sustain itself if you can’t just _talk_ to me.” He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “And you don’t need to win me back, all right?” he said, quiet and tired. “You’ve won me a thousand times over, darling. You’ve won.” Letting his hand drop, he turned and headed back into the restaurant, unable to look over his shoulder. If he looked back, he knew he would fall into her arms, and that wasn’t the right thing for either of them.

* * *

 

The fifth time wasn’t a date in the strictest sense, but the more inebriated Giles got, the closer he came to thinking of it as one. This year had been awash in nostalgia and loneliness, and the fact that Ethan was still the same after all these years (still _wanted_ him after all these years) had much more sway on Giles than it probably should have. Things were comfortingly blurry around the edges, and Ethan kept on touching Giles’s hand in a lingering, purposeful way, and Giles thought he might take Ethan home. That would be nice. His home was very lonely and it felt two degrees too cold because Jenny had done something slightly magical to the central heating during that heat wave last spring and Giles didn’t know how to fix it.

“We should go,” Ethan suggested, giving Giles a small, slow smile. “After you’ve finished—” and he nodded to Giles’s latest drink, the one that had arrived when Giles had stepped out to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. He didn’t mind being drunk, but some sobriety was required if he and Ethan were going to—that is, Ethan wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy, and—

“Hey,” said a voice. _“Hey._ ”

“Oh, look!” said Ethan, tilting his head up to grin broadly at whoever had just come up to their table. “Ripper, _look,_ it’s that bird who wouldn’t marry you!”

God, Giles was glad he was drunk. “Jenny,” he said, and turned to look at her. She was lit up by the glow of the terrible, barely-working lightbulb behind them, and she was wearing that soft grey sweater he’d pulled off her after the Ascension. “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

“Ethan?” said Jenny. “Leave.”

“I’m Ripper’s moral support,” said Ethan seriously. “Also we’re going to go off and shag later.”

“Great,” said Jenny. “Cool. Well, can I talk to Rupert for a second outside before you two go off and shag?”

Ethan seemed to seriously consider the question, something that he probably wouldn’t have done had he not consumed an ungodly amount of alcohol. Giles decided to answer it for him. “M not going anywhere with you,” he informed Jenny. “You don’t want me, remember? You just want to show up and bollocks up all my dates.”

“Yep,” said Jenny. “That is exactly why I am taking you away from the drunk warlock who almost got Buffy killed on two separate occasions.”

“ _Thank_ you,” said Giles, gratified that she had admitted to her wrongdoing, and reached for the beer on the table. Jenny reached forward, trying to grab it from him, and Giles’s attempt to grab it back ended up spilling it all over Ethan, who jumped back with a screech as though he’d been burned. “S’ just _beer,_ ” said Giles, a laugh in his voice.

“It’s part of a _spell!”_ Ethan objected with alarm. “S’posed to turn you into a Fyarl demon!” He blinked, then winced. “Fuck.”

Giles looked at Ethan, looked at Jenny, and felt a profound sense of exhausted heartbreak. Nothing ever really changed, did it? There were always strings attached, whether it was with Ethan or with Jenny. Jenny was here to ruin his date, and Ethan was here to fuck him up and fuck him over and fuck him in the process. “I should like twelve to seventeen more beers,” he informed a passing waitress.

“Cancel that,” said Jenny to the waitress, tugging at Giles’s shoulder. She smelled like lavender.

“You smell like lavender,” said Giles, letting her pull him out of the restaurant. He stopped a few feet away from the door, then slumped against the wall, staring out at the half-empty parking lot. “I’m going to be alone forever,” he said.

“You are very drunk,” said Jenny tightly. “Come on.”

“Jenny, I should have hidden the ring away and never asked you,” Giles told her. “It was my fault. I should have known—you were always scared of that sort of thing, you hid in a linen closet in my family’s mansion rather than meet my mum for the first time—I didn’t _need_ to marry you, you know that, don’t you? I just wanted you to _know,_ that, that it _could_ happen if you wanted it—”

“You’re gonna be so mad at me if I tell you I miss you while you’re drunk off your ass,” Jenny whispered. “Please don’t make me tell you how much I miss you, Rupert.”

Through the fog of alcohol and general misery, Giles recognized only that Jenny was hurting. Clumsily, he tugged on her hand, then pulled her into his arms, closing his eyes. He felt her hands grip the lapels of his jacket, felt her cheek against his shoulder, and how many times had they stood just like this? “You know I love you, Janna-Jenny-Jen,” he whispered.

Jenny sniffled. Then she said, “We have to go home.”

“It’s too cold at home,” Giles told her. “You did that thing to the heating system and I don’t know how to fix it—”

“I’ll fix it, just, just, let’s go home,” said Jenny, pulling away from him and scrubbing at her face. She started walking in the direction of her car, except Giles didn’t follow—Giles didn’t want to follow her. She turned. “Rupert?”

“I don’t want to keep walking,” said Giles, staring at her and thinking about—dancing with her that first time, the way her hair fell out of its updo and her blue-and-black sweater bunched under his hands. “I don’t want to walk back home and go to bed alone, Jenny. I loved you so much, I don’t know why—I don’t know what I did wrong.” He swallowed, eyes bright. “I’d do it all over again if I knew how to fix what I did wrong.”

Jenny shook her head, fast and hard, dark hair flying out like a storm cloud. “Absolutely  _not,_ ” she said, fierce and horribly sad. “ _No,_ okay? You didn’t do a single fucking thing wrong, and you know it. This one’s on me.”

“Nothing’s on you,” said Giles, taking a stumbling step forward and gripping her elbow to brace himself.

“You’re  _really_ drunk, Rupert, _please_ don’t start a conversation you won’t even _remember—_ ”

“Tell me again in the morning, then,” said Giles very softly. “Tell me why I’m wrong and you’re right and you’re the only reason you left.” His chest felt tight with longing. _“Tell_ me.”

Looking away from him, Jenny took his hand again, tugging him the rest of the way to the car.

* * *

 

Giles woke up on his couch with a headache and a distinct sense of regret. The house was the right temperature, which struck him as odd, and then a flicker of memory came back to him—holding Jenny outside a seedy bar downtown, her face buried in his chest. But that couldn’t be right. He’d been out with Ethan last night, hadn’t he?

“Hey.”

Giles almost fell off the couch. “Don’t _do_ that,” he gasped, staring at Jenny, who was…wearing one of his button-downs, the way she’d always done on lazy weekends when she didn’t want to get dressed. She was holding a glass of water, and she looked gently disheveled, and he missed her so much it hurt.

Jenny nodded. Tentatively, she said, “Do you remember what happened last night?”

“I assume Ethan tried to poison me,” said Giles, letting his head fall back against the couch cushions. “That or turn me into a demon. It’s what usually happens when we go out drinking, though it was much more entertaining when we were young and in love.” He’d meant to say _young and stupid,_ but that had slipped out instead, and something about it made him feel strangely better. He’d gotten over Ethan, hadn’t he?

 _You never proposed to Ethan, though,_ said that same terrible voice in the back of his head.

Jenny sat down in front of him, holding out the glass of water. Giles took it. “That pretty much sums it up,” she said. She hesitated, then said, “I don’t think I ever gave you a real apology for the horrible way I’ve been acting these last few weeks. I really think you deserve one.”

“It’s fine,” said Giles.

“It’s  _not,_ ” said Jenny firmly.

Giles took a second look at her. The half-manic glint in her eyes, the one that had been present every time she’d crashed all of his dates, had faded to a tired sadness that he didn’t know how he’d missed before. “Jenny,” he said, “I meant what I said. I still want to be with you.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Jenny, and scooted closer to him on the floor, resting her head against his leg. “I want to be with you too.”

It didn’t feel like all that much of a revelation. Giles handed her the water, and she took it, taking a sip herself. “So what now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Jenny quietly. “I think I probably stop crashing your dates, and you maybe hit up Olivia again. Or that Stacie chick, she seems nice—”

“Jenny,” said Giles.

Jenny looked up at him, her mouth trembling. “I don’t want to get married,” she said. “Not now. Maybe not ever. I never liked the idea as a kid and I don’t think I can like it even if it’s you, and I _hate_ that. I don’t think it makes me any less of a person, but I _don’t_ like that it’s something I might not be able to give you.”

“Relationships are _always_ about compromise,” said Giles softly. “What on earth would make you think that marriage is a non-negotiable for me?”

“Because—” Jenny stopped, then sniffled, resting her head against his leg again. Giles reached down, carding his fingers through her hair. “Because it _should_ be,” she said, almost childishly.

Giles smiled a bit wryly, sliding down to sit next to her on the floor (and doing his best to ignore hangover-related aches and pains). He set down the glass of water on the coffee table, reached up to tilt her face towards his, and kissed her.

It felt like the right decision, kissing her, especially when she kissed him back, raising her hands to tangle them in his hair. Every part of this felt shockingly simple, and it made him want to laugh; they were just so _bad_ at this. He pulled away, cupping her face in his hands, and she bumped her nose against his. “You know we could have saved each other a lot of trouble if—” he murmured.

“I know,” said Jenny miserably. “And that’s kinda the other thing. I’m not _good_ at talking these things out. Generally I just pull back from relationships when things get too real, but…” She kissed him again, then let her forehead fall against his.

“You never did that with me,” Giles finished.

“Yeah,” said Jenny.

“Well, you’re doing it now,” Giles pointed out.

Jenny exhaled, almost a laugh. “Yeah,” she said again. “Yeah, and…a lot of this is because of what you said last night.”

Giles thought back, finding only a few hazy memories. “That you smell like lavender?”

Jenny really did laugh at that, which warmed Giles. “That you didn’t know what you did wrong,” she said, her voice softening. “And—Rupert, you, you _have_ to know that you didn’t do a single thing wrong, okay? This was all me having an extended meltdown and doing my best to drag you down with me.”

“You give yourself too much credit,” said Giles. “I went out drinking with my ex-boyfriend who has a _history_ of poisoning people for laughs.”

“Still,” said Jenny.

Giles smiled a bit. “So what do you want to say?” he asked gently.

Jenny’s wobbly grin faded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, I am. I can make excuses for the rest of the day, but that won’t change the fact that what I did hurt you. I know I want to be with you, but after the mess of these last few months, I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Giles shook his head. “I’m not asking for an apology, Jenny,” he said. “I’m asking for you to tell me if my proposal has changed things between us in any way.”

“I feel like it _should_ have— _”_

“But has it?”

Jenny smiled again. “No,” she said. “No, I—I still love you just as much, Rupert. None of that’s changed. I just…” She trailed off, biting her lip. “I was scared things would have changed for _you,_ ” she said. “You’re traditional, and British, and adorably romantic, and when you commit to something, you _commit._ I mean, god, the way you care about Buffy and those kids! I know I’m not the marrying type, but I also know that you _so_ are.”

“I’m not the _marrying_ type, Jenny,” said Giles firmly. “I’m the _commitment_ type. It’s certainly easier to express through marriage, but all I wanted to establish is that I want you with me for the long haul.”

“That freaks me out,” said Jenny matter-of-factly.

“And that is _perfectly_ fine, all right?” Giles kissed her again, very gently. “That doesn’t make me think any less of you. Understand?”

Jenny stared at him for a long moment, then said, very emphatically, _“God,_ I _am_ an idiot!” Giles tilted his head, smiling in agreement. “Shut up,” said Jenny, a sobbing laugh in her voice, “shut up shut up shut _up,_ ” and pulled him into a fiercely passionate kiss.

* * *

 

“You all owe me _so_ much money!” Buffy shouted triumphantly at the next Scooby meeting. “Faith, fork over ten dollars, you said they’d stay broken up for six months. Willow, you said a year, that’s five dollars. _Xander,_ you dumbass, you bet twenty bucks on them _never_ getting back together, that was _such_ a bad investment—”

“I bet twenty-five on three months,” Joyce reminded Buffy mildly, refilling her glass of lemonade.

“You sent Giles on all those bad dates,” said Buffy, “that _so_ doesn’t count—”

“Those were…bad dates?” said Giles.

 _“Joyce,_ ” said Jenny.

“Don’t  _Joyce_ me,” said Joyce reprovingly, “ _I_ didn’t spill red wine all over Rupert just to make a point.”

“Those were bad dates,” Giles repeated disbelievingly.

“We’re really stupid,” said Jenny, who was holding his hand. “Really, really stupid.”

“I am going to buy _new boots,_ ” said Buffy, and gave Giles a friendly shoulder punch. “So when are you two getting married?”

“Never,” said Giles, and tugged a grinning Jenny into his side.


End file.
